An Interview with
Pulitzer Prize Winner David Mamet
A writer known for
straightforward brevity
gives us just that…
Amy Levinson: American Buffalo has this uncanny
aspect to it wherein it is both completely a play of
its time and place and incredibly timely. Can you
talk a bit about the spark that lead you to write it
and how you see these characters now?
David Mamet: I used to spend a lot of time with
hustlers and thieves. A play set among them is, like a
play set among the super-rich, in politics, or among
Kings and Queens, or in OZ, a device which lets us
participate fully. It means “Once upon a time.”
AL: I have heard some say that they put you on a
trajectory of writers that reads: Beckett—Pinter—
Mamet—LaBute. The idea being that each writer
has built upon the specific writers that came before
him. Do you think there is validity to this?
DM: There is validity to a whole raft of things.
AL: Whom of your contemporaries inspires you?
What is the work you find most exciting?
DM: I adore Doubt. I loved Joe Gatins’s script for
Flight, and Anderson and Coppola’s Moonrise
Kingdom.
AL: When you begin work on a play or a film does
the idea always come to you in a similar way; do
you think of a character, some dialogue, a setting
and go from there? And once the idea sets in, what
are the first steps you take to make it come to life?
DM: None of your goddamned business.
AL: As a playwright, screenwriter and episodic
writer, how do you know in which medium an idea
belongs?

playwright david mamet
P4 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINe

DM: I can’t even figure out how to correctly
arrange the silverware. And I have a
compartmented drawer for that.